Piloting Faith: Six Foot Challenge

A Word for the Day...

Yesterday I was part of a conversation with singer/songwriter Carrie Newcomer. We talked about the state of the world and how music and poetry offer us a portal into deeper ways of seeing and sensing what is being born and what is being put aside.

At one point, she commented that it's hard to know where to start and what to do to help. Then she told a story of a friend of hers who has a "Three Foot Rule." He says, "I can't change everything in the world, but I can change what is three feet around me."

Perhaps today it should be a Six Foot Rule.

This week I've spent nights walking the streets of Atlanta in protests in support of Black Lives Matter. Night after night people gather, now with ragged signs, hoarse voices, and sore feet, to march once again for change. As I looked at the tired faces in the crowd as the march ended, I thought of an old story of a little sparrow. The story goes...

One day there was a knight riding on a forest path, decked out in shining armor and astride a mighty steed. He was all ready to right the wrong, save ladies in distress and slay dragons. Along the way he saw a small sparrow, lying on its back in the middle of the path, with its tiny legs sticking upright. He slowed down and spoke to it:

"O sparrow, why are you lying on your back in the middle of the path?"

The sparrow replied: "Good Sir knight, I was told that the heavens would fall today."

The knight gave a good laugh, saying: "And you mean to hold the heavens up with your spindly little legs?"

But the sparrow just let a deep sigh: "One does what one can, Sir knight, one does what one can."

Most days I wonder what difference my efforts can make. Perhaps you do too. But then I think of the people marching night after night. I think of the healthcare workers. I think of the poets, artists, songwriters, preachers, teacher and coaches. Then I have hope. When we all keep showing up, making the six feet around us just a bit better, we can trust that it make a difference in the end.

Like the little sparrow, we do what we can. God will make it enough.

We are in this together,

Rev. Cameron Trimble
Author of 60 Days of Faith: A Devotional

Prayer for the Week

May God give you grace never to sell yourself short,
grace to risk something big for something good,
and grace to remember that the world is too dangerous
for anything but truth and too small for anything but love.

Amen.

- ELCA The Lutheran Center Chapel